Since the mid-seventies, the prevalence of obesity has increased sharply for both adults and children. These increasing rates raise concern because of their implications for Americans' health. Being overweight or obese may increase the risk of many diseases and health conditions, including: hypertension, dyslipidemia (for example, high total cholesterol or high levels of triglycerides), type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke, gallbladder disease, osteoarthritis, sleep apnea and respiratory problems, and some cancers (such as endometrial, breast, and colon).
Obesity and its associated health problems have a significant economic impact on the U.S. health care system. Medical costs associated with excess weight and obesity may involve direct and indirect costs. Direct medical costs may include preventive, diagnostic, and treatment services related to obesity. Indirect costs relate to morbidity and mortality costs. Morbidity costs are defined as the value of income lost from decreased productivity, restricted activity, absenteeism, and bed days. Mortality costs are the value of future income lost by premature death.
Many therapies are currently being investigated for treatment of obesity and diseases associated with obesity. To date, the widely used obesity treatments have not been shown to be ideal, particularly for those afflicted with severe obesity. The approaches that have been proposed range from lifestyle coaching to major surgical therapies.
Many severely obese patients have turned to surgical options. These surgical options include highly invasive procedures such as stomach reduction and gastric bypass, while less invasive procedures include the implantation of gastric bands. Another option for the severely obese patients involves the endoscopic placement of an intragastric balloon, a silicon balloon device that is placed in the stomach endoscopically.
Unfortunately, patient compliance and the accuracy with which patients report their own activities can significantly limit the effectiveness of weight loss treatments. One of the problems associated with the surgical procedures of gastric reduction, gastric bypass, gastric banding and intragastric balloons revolves around patient compliance. Even after these surgeries or endoscopic procedures, a number of patients find ways to “cheat;” they avoid the volume limitation imposed by stomach reduction from the above-mentioned procedures simply by ingesting liquids or liquefied solids that easily drain into their small intestines. For weight loss treatment to be successful, the surgical or endoscopic procedures should ideally be combined with lifestyle changes. Patients' self-reporting has very often proven to be inaccurate.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide devices, systems and methods that can accurately monitor and report a patient's actual daily caloric intake as well as activity related caloric expenditure, to be used in obesity treatment therapy. Ideally, such a system would provide a patient, his or her physician, a lifestyle coach, support group, and/or other caregivers the information collected about the patient's eating and exercise habits for use in monitoring the patient's progress and so as to present actual behavior-based information to the patient for effective behavior modification and greater success in achieving weight loss or health goals.